SALT LAKE CITY – Calvin Kattar hasn’t changed his opinion on his loss to Josh Emmett.
Kattar (23-6 MMA, 7-4 UFC) lost a split decision to Emmett (18-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) in the UFC on ESPN 37 main event in June. It’s a fight he was confident he won.
“I definitely felt like I did enough to win that one,” Kattar told MMA Junkie and other reporters backstage at UFC 278 in Salt Lake City, where he was a guest fighter this past Saturday. “The meet-and-greet fan expo thing, I’m kind of sick of hearing it from everybody, too. But it’s good to understand that they saw it the way I did.”
Kattar was coming off a bounce-back win over rising contender Giga Chikadze before he was edged out by Emmett. In another top-five matchup in July, Yair Rodriguez scored a Round 1 TKO win over Brian Ortega due to injury, which hasn’t given the upper echelon of the division too much clarity.
“It’s a little all over the place,” Kattar said. “(It’s) unfortunate the way that one went down, I think, for both guys. It started off pretty good. I was excited to see that one finish the right way for whoever won it. But now you’ve got Josh sitting in the background. Yeah, it’s just tough man. I felt like a win over him might put me obviously one step closer, so (I’m) trying to do my part to stay ready.
“I thought I did enough in that last one and I feel like that would have put me in a good position to whatever is going to happen next. It’s kind of at a weird standstill, so who knows what that next play is going to be. But all I can do now is put all my energy into that next one and whoever that’s going to be (and) go make that case for why. If I think I’m that guy, it’s just a little bit of a bump in the road and I’m still going to get to where I need to be.”
